Qualified Employees Increasingly Hard To Come By In Manufacturing Sector

Chris Boltz, a manufacturing engineer with Oberg Industries, has been there since 1998. When he decided to attend Oberg's apprentice program instead of attending college, his high school counselor told him he was throwing away his life.

But inside the nondescript structures are tidy rows of machinery worth hundreds of thousands of dollars each. In one department, refrigerator-sized electric discharge machines, which cut metal using wire, sizzle away like cooking bacon. In another, workers operate manual machines. In one room a worker runs quality assurance using a high-tech instrument.